Spice it up!

For discriminate palates, food is not just for sustenance; it has to be a pleasurable experience.
And to be enjoyable, food has to be flavorful.

More often than you imagine, it is not. Especially in restaurants.
There is nothing more galling to me than paying good money for bland, or poorly seasoned food.

It seems that many restaurants (probably afraid to offend some wimpy customers) are holding back on seasoning.
It is a mistake.
It is not up to the customer to dictate how the food should taste, it is up to the chef.
A chef’s cooking is his signature, and if you don’t like it, don’t patronize his establishment.

Nobody (discerning people) likes bland food.
Some dishes, especially seafood, need to be seasoned to make them flavorful and various spices and herbs should be used to enhance the character of fish, mussels, prawns and other marine delicacies.

Spices are the Wonderbras of food. Their purpose is to uplift and enhance the goods. Without them, everything feels flat.

In many restaurants, numerous dishes are not properly flavored. They are too sweet, too salty, too spicy.
Unfortunately, the journeymen operating in the kitchen seldom take the time to taste what they are preparing.
They might call themselves “cooks” but they are nothing but lowly “food preparation workers” whose main job is to expedite whatever the customer ordered.
This is wrong! Any food preparer worth his salt should taste his concoction.
When I eat “escargots” for instance, I want to taste the garlic or I want my money back!

Once in a while, when the mood strikes, I don my cooking apron and embark on a culinary adventure.
It might be a single dish, but it has to be tasty. And my best tasting utensil is my finger.

I know that there are some squeamish souls out there who would faint at the thought of seeing my finger occasionally dipping into a sauce, but I know that Julia Child or Jacques Pepin (a true professional) would not disavow me for that.

My philosophy is that guests should never be privy to what happens in the kitchen.
If they like the food, they are never going to question the chef’s cooking methods. If they don’t like it, they should!

To sum it up, when preparing a dish, don’t go mechanically through the process. Taste it for crying out loud. Often!

Alain